You will need to build up an entirely new friend list for each and every online Wii game, it has been confirmed.
Talking to a Nintendo blogger about Wii's friend code system, GameSpy commented: "GameSpy's technology does allow for features that could span multiple games. With the Nintendo Wii, however, the multiplayer features are title-specific."
They went on to say: "For the Wii, friend lists are game specific", confirming an earlier report on CVG.
This mirrors system used on DS, which also requires gamers to tiresomely enter lengthy friend codes into each and every game they wish to play online.
This awkward system is unlike the Xbox 360 and PS3, both of which apply a single friend list, stored within the console's front-end firmware, to all online games.
Is this likely to be changed in a future system update? We're awaiting a reply from Nintendo UK but we seriously doubt it.
This is frustrating! Nintendo seem intent on hampering the on line features and over complicating it all. I thought the whole ethos was to stream line and simplify things, take the annoyance out of everything.
You mean the 180 odd edits I made to the big Wii friend code list on the NGamer forum were all for nothing!
The 99 active friends that I have made through the NGamer Forum are all just there for messaging and not gaming!
Why? Why Nintendo why? It doesn't do anything to make it safer, and it certainly isn't a convienient and easy sytem for the users... is it cheaper? Easier to run? Lazier? Why?
Why oh why are we complaining about this? For goodness sake, you only enter the darn friend code ONCE! Just once for each game.
It's not like you have to enter it everytime you boot-up. And don't give that "Well on Xbox Live you don't have to do that" nonsense because Nintendo are going to do it their way. Sure Microsoft's online interaction is superb, but it doesn't mean everyone is going to follow suit.
It sounds like every online gamer is a lazy bottom with the "annoyance" when it comes to the friend-list re-input. Just get on with it.
Do you hear that, that’s the sound of Nintendo’s online plans dying a slow and painful death.
As far as I’m concerned if this is implemented then I will be spending a lot less time on the wii, I thought the wii was supposed to be inclusive but this seems to be doing the opposite. gamers have seen the future of multiplayer and its xbox live, if they dont get a proper online mode then they can forget about coming anything but a distant last in this generation of consoles.
That was the sound of the final nail in the Wii's coffin for me. I hardly ever play it at all (only occasionally play Wii sports or let the kids mess about on it). The online play was one thing I was hoping would improve but it looks like its not gonna be. As for that Hussain bloke getting all uppity about you only enter the code once but MS do it this but not everyone has to copy them blah blah crap rubbish, this still makes it a tiresome bore, I don't think XBOX live would've been as good or as succesfull if you had gamercodes and not gamertags and if yuou had to have a different code to type in for every different game! What a load of b******s!
It's a PitA but it's not the end of the world either. I think the multi-player functionality of the Wii works really well: it gets people in the same room, having a great time together. IMHO that's much more important than satiating the needs of lonely gamers whose only friends exist online; but maybe that's just me being deliberately provocative ...
NOoooo... f**king friends codes, the only way to get them is to either know people directly or go on line to a forum and take down numbers to put in. This does take time, and for each different game
I'm beginning to wonder if anyone at Nintendo has ever played a DS game online!?!
Mario kart works pretty well with it, i gotta say. I like the tension before, waiting to see if the guy you're facing has japanese characters in his name...
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